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She flushed a little, realizing she had stated the obvious in response to his jesting remark. The tendency came from dealing with children so much of the time. In addition to her work with the church youth groups, she tended the church nursery during services. After a while with children, you got to taking everything literally. “I’m sorry. I get so used to talking with children.”
“Don’t sweat it. You’re just so all-fired serious, it’s hard not to pull your leg.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that. She didn’t think of herself as being serious, but she supposed she was. There wasn’t a whole lot in life worth laughing at or getting overjoyed about. Life was a serious business.
“Anyway, the sheriff thinks the ranch is a good idea. I figure maybe we’d start with a half-dozen kids and see how it goes. I’d like to be able to take girls, too.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Everybody gets so concerned about all the crime caused by boys that girls get overlooked. They don’t commit as many crimes, but they have just as many problems at home and on the streets. Somebody needs to look out for them, too.”
“But won’t making it coeducational cause problems?”
“Not if I do it right.”
They had reached Park Street and turned right, heading toward her house two blocks down. Most of the driveways were empty, since nearly everybody was partying.
Hugh spoke again. “I don’t know how Nate is going to be able to afford to marry off so many daughters if he invites everybody in the county to the shindig.”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? But he knows everybody. And he’s not doing sit-down meals, so maybe it’s not as bad as it could be.”
“Maybe.”
They reached her house at last, climbed the porch steps and stopped at her door.
“I’ll just wait while you get inside, Miss Anna,” he said. “You have a good evening, hear?”
She stepped inside, turned on the light and locked the door behind her. Then she ran into the darkened living room to look out the window to watch him walk away. He had a slow, easy stride, like a man who’d walked many miles and was in no hurry to get to his destination.
She envied him his calm confidence and steady determination. She wished that once, just once, she could feel as comfortable with herself as he seemed to feel. And it must be wonderful to be able to walk down a dark street and not feel a nagging need to look back over your shoulder.
She let the curtain fall over the window and turned on another light.
She was home and she was lonely.
Nothing new. It was a fact of life. Loneliness kept her safe.
She had the nightmare again that night. It had been years since the last time, but it was still all too familiar when she woke up in a cold sweat, shaking with terror. The night-light she couldn’t sleep without glowed softly in the wall socket, but suddenly it wasn’t enough. Even the shadowy shapes of the furnishings refused to resolve into familiarity by its light.
Sitting up quickly, she reached for the switch on the bedside lamp. It came instantly to life, then, with a flash, burned out. Shaking, shivering, breathing raggedly, she desperately fought her way out from beneath the blankets and ran as fast as she dared into the kitchen. There, the flick of a wall switch cast immediate normalcy over the night.
The refrigerator hummed softly, as it always did. She could smell the very faint odor of gas from the range and realized the pilot must have gone out. Searching for matches gave her something to do, something ordinary and real. Something to drag her out of the consuming depths of her dream.
The matches were where she always kept them, but she dropped the box twice just trying to get it out of the drawer. She waited a moment, taking deep, steadying breaths, then lit the pilot light under the range cover. The match slipped from between her fingers into the drip pan, but she left it.
It could stay until she was steadier.
She poured herself a glass of milk and tried to ignore the phone on the wall, but it was as if her eyes were attached to it by rubber bands. No matter how many times she jerked her gaze away, it snapped back.
He might be dead by now. The thought was seductive and wouldn’t go away.
It had been years since she had called, and he would have to be in his sixties now, wouldn’t he? So maybe he was dead. God, she hoped he was dead.
But she didn’t want to hear his voice. What if he answered the phone? Then she would know for sure he wasn’t dead, that he was still out there. It was better not to know.
She sipped her milk and shivered again, this time from a chill. It was four in the morning, and while the house wasn’t cold, her body thought it ought to be in bed under the covers. But she couldn’t go back to sleep. Not now. She would only have the dream again. Once it came, it just kept coming back.
She wandered through the house, turning on lights as she went, refusing to worry about the cost. She sat in the big, overstuffed chair she had bought secondhand last winter and tried to read a paperback crime novel. She turned the pages four times before she realized she hadn’t absorbed a single word.
Giving up, she tried to turn her thoughts back to the wedding. Back to how nice Hugh Gallagher had been to her. And he had been nice. As threatened as most men made her feel, it was really surprising that he had managed to make her feel safe enough to let him walk her home.
There was a gentleness in his manner, she realized. Something that had reassured her. The slow way he talked, the easy way he held himself, the quick consideration of her feelings had all combined to make her feel she could trust him at least that far. Only Nate Tate and Dan Fromberg had been able to get so far past her defenses.
Deep inside her, she was astonished to realize, was a barely born hope that she would see Cowboy again.
As soon as she recognized it, she felt panic begin to build in her. No. No, she told herself. No. It was too dangerous. There were too many secrets. Too many horrible things in her past. Even if she could trust him not to hurt her, she couldn’t trust herself not to hurt him.
It wasn’t just the fact that she was terrified of men that kept her away from them; she was terrified of what her past could do to her relationships, to her entire life, if anyone found out about it.
Solitude was her fortress, and she kept herself inside it of her own free will. She couldn’t afford to lose sight of that.
But the phone kept beckoning her. He might be dead. It would be nice to know that he was.
The thought upset her, it seemed so evil, but the man had done evil things to her. She didn’t exactly wish him dead, she assured herself. It was just that she knew she wouldn’t be free of him until he was gone. Then she would have only the horrible things she’d done herself to be worried about. By comparison, her own deeds seemed paltry. She could handle that guilt.
She looked at the phone beside her chair and knew that she was going to call. She didn’t want to. She couldn’t stand the thought of hearing his voice again, but she had to know. Ever since she could remember, she had been doing things she didn’t want to because of that man, and she longed to break his hold over her.
But she couldn’t stop herself. As if watching from a distance, she saw her hand reach out for the receiver, watched her own fingers punch in a number she would never forget. Then, holding her breath, she waited while the phone rang. It was two hours later back there, and if he wasn’t up already, he would be getting up soon.
On the sixth ring, a groggy male voice answered. “Hello?”
She slammed down the receiver immediately, disconnecting the call. Her heart hammered wildly, and she could scarcely catch her breath.
He was still alive. Still sleeping in her mother’s bed as if he’d never done anything wrong. She would bet he never had nightmares about what he’d done to her. Never. He probably slept like a baby.
And suddenly, unable to help herself, Anna burst into tears and cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.
Chapter 2 (#u5ac1458c-a478-531b-af62-b7a8e7025ab1)
“Anna, you have to rescue me.”
Anna looked up from her desk as Reverend Daniel Fromberg stepped in from the brisk day outside. She made a point of always getting to the office ahead of him, and he had to insist in order to get her to leave before him.
Daniel Fromberg was a pleasant-looking man in his late forties.
Just average in height, he had a slight build that sometimes made people underestimate his backbone. As Anna had learned during the past five years, Daniel Fromberg had a backbone of steel when it came to what was right.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, feeling a smile curve the corners of her mouth. With two teenage children and a pair of unexpected two-year-old twins, Dan Fromberg was often in need of her help. It usually involved finding him a baby-sitter so he could save his wife’s sanity.
“The dogs!” he said with an exaggerated groan as he dropped into the chair facing her desk. Eight weeks ago, the Frombergs’ Irish setter had given birth to four adorable little pups. “They’re driving me nuts. They’re driving Cheryl nuts. They’re into everything! Piddling all over the place, making little piles behind the couch, the TV, the bed—you name it!”
“So get a gate and lock them into one small area of the house.”
He shook his head. “I tried to. Clearly you do not know my children.”
She laughed; she couldn’t help it. “They let them out, huh?”
“All the time. The older ones finally got the message, but the twins…!” He shook his head. “They just love to release the catch. Cheryl tried using a twisty-tie to stop them, but Dan junior figured it out.
Then we tried a padlock, but this morning Jolly—that’s the momma dog—got fed up with being cooped up and knocked the darn thing down. I now have holes in the doorjamb and a broken gate. Cheryl’s threatening to take the pups to the pound.”
Anna felt a twinge of dismay. “You can’t do that! Surely you can get someone to adopt them.”
“That’s what we thought. I mean, the whole reason we never got Jolly spayed was because the older kids wanted puppies, and Cheryl thought it would be a good experience for them. But now we’ve got too many puppies, and would you believe it? Nobody wants a dog, especially mongrels. Everybody already has a dog.” He eyed her. “Except you.”
“No, you can’t do this to me.”
“Do what to you? Give you a warm, furry little companion? Some soft-eyed little fuzzball that will curl up on your feet on cold winter evenings? A friend who will always be glad to see you and will lick your face when you get sad? How can that be construed as doing something to you?”
Anna felt herself weakening. It was true, she had been thinking about a pet, but she had thought a cat would be better suited to her sometimes long work hours. “It wouldn’t be fair to a puppy to leave it alone all day.”
“So bring it here,” he said. “I’ll even get you a pet carrier to keep it in.
I’ll pay for all the shots. I’ll help you housebreak it.”
“Well…”
“Just a minute.” He dashed back outside and moments later returned carrying a small auburn-colored puppy in his arms. “I call her Jazz, but you can call her whatever you want,” he said, and dumped the puppy in her arms.
Anna was lost. She felt the warm little body quiver fearfully in her arms and instinctively began to pet it and coo gently to it. Jazz’s ears were huge, so long that Anna imagined they must touch the floor when the puppy stood. It had a plump little pink tummy just like a baby. “Dan…”
“Adorable, isn’t she? And I’ll pay to have her spayed, too, so you don’t develop a puppy problem. Trust me, she’ll brighten your life.”
Anna looked down into soft brown eyes and felt a tiny pink tongue lick her chin tentatively. “You are so sweet,” she heard herself say to the dog. “This is extortion, Dan. You know I can’t let her go to the pound.”
“Certainly not. She’s yours.”
Anna looked at Jazz and smiled. “Thank you.”
“I’ll get the carrier out of the car.”
By the time Dan returned, Anna had already figured out a bunch of benefits to having a dog. She would be able to take walks on dark winter evenings without feeling quite as afraid or alone. She would have a dog to keep her company in the dead of night when she couldn’t sleep. In short, Jazz would go a long way toward easing her loneliness without forcing her to take risks.
Then the puppy licked her chin again, and none of the rest of it mattered. She was in love.
Dan set the carrier down in the corner with a stack of newspapers. “I figured the least I could do is provide the first batch of cage liners.”
“Thanks.”
He sat down facing her again. “You look awful, Anna. Exhausted. Have you been having trouble sleeping again?”
“Just a little.” She really didn’t want to get into it in any depth. She had never told him what had happened to her and never intended to.
Still, she sometimes thought he suspected. His expression was so kind that she had to stop herself from blurting out the whole story. The impulse terrified her, and her heart slammed.
Dan regarded her gently for a while, then said, “If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here. I think I’m a pretty good friend.”
“I’m sure you are.” But she didn’t want to talk about it. She tried her best not to even think about it. “At least, you are when you don’t have puppies to get rid of.
What are you going to do with the rest of them?”
“Oh, I already found homes for them. Jazz was the only one left.”
“You stinker!”
He rose, laughing. “Hey, all I did was convince you to take a friend for life!” Still grinning, he went into his office.
Anna sat for a while longer, holding Jazz until the puppy’s eyelids began to droop. Then she put the dog in the carrier and locked the door. Poor little thing, she thought as she returned to her desk. It might be the natural way of things, but eight weeks seemed awfully young to be taken from your mother.
Not that her own mother had been worth much, she thought with a sudden burst of bitterness. The woman wasn’t even fit for the title of mother. No question but that she herself would have been better off if she’d been taken away at eight weeks.
At any time before she had turned twelve, in fact.
But she didn’t want to think about that. With great effort, she forced her attention back to her work.
An hour later, Dan emerged from his office. “I have to go over to the hospital. Candy Burgess had a severe gall bladder attack last night, and they’re doing surgery this morning. I promised to go by and sit with the family.”
“All right. Are you taking your pager?”
He pointed to his belt. “Got it. Also, I asked a guy to come by and take a look at the church roof. Last winter we had some serious ice damming.”
“I remember.”
“I want to see if there’s anything he can do to lessen it. He said he’d pop in when he had a minute and take a look, so if he gets here while I’m gone, will you show him where the damming was worst?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, then. You and Jazz have fun.” He headed for the door.
“Say hi to Candy for me.”
He was halfway out the door as she spoke, but he leaned back in. “If you want my opinion, it’s all that dieting she does that caused this. Remember all those news stories a few years back about liquid diets causing gall bladder disease? I don’t think it’s liquid diets in particular. I think it’s starving yourself that does it.”
“You might be right.”
His eyes twinkled suddenly. “Of course. I’m always right. People should listen to me more often. Bottom line is, God made some of us small and some of us tall, some of us skinny and some of us heavy, but we’re all beautiful in His eyes. And just for the record, I think all this weight consciousness is a conspiracy on the part of men to starve women into submission.”
She burst out laughing and heard his answering laugh as he hurried to his car. What a character! He was such a joy to work for—even if he had foisted a puppy on her.
